This story contains spoilers for The Boys Seasons 1-3.
Gen V is the latest TV series from the world of The Boys and it sure is goopy! Of course, when their main character can manipulate blood, it’s kind of a given. But thankfully, audiences should be accustomed to the many creative, gruesome deaths featured on The Boys: immolation, laser beams, skull-crushing, and slashing.
The more jaw-dropping deaths, however, are explodey, goopy ones. Deaths with visceral physics that the show not only appreciates and respects but also leans into heavily with their buckets of digital blood accentuating their actual buckets of dark red corn syrup.
So, here are seven of the goopiest deaths The Boys has given us so far. These deaths will be rated on a scale from one to five buckets of blood, one being the least goopy and five being the most. Three factors are taken into consideration:
- How many buckets of blood are we talking about here?
- How does it impact the story?
- How shocking was it? Was there much build-up? Did you jump?
Robin Ward - Season 1, Episode 1
What better way to kick off a series and set the tone for the world of The Boys than killing Robin Ward (Jess Salgueiro), the girlfriend of our audience surrogate, Hughie (Jack Quaid)? One second we’re watching romcom banter, and the next, the sound of a passing train comes and Robin’s been gooped.
Before Hughie or the audience can register what happened, slow-motion globs of blood coat a stunned Hughie’s face and the camera moves to reveal the almost 20-foot trail of blood and guts that A-Train leaves in his wake after accidentally running through Robin while hopped up on Compound V.
To make this whole event even more upsetting… Hughie looks down and realizes he’s still holding onto her hands. Once the scene returns to full speed, hearing the final splat of everything Robin used to be is horrifying. While Robin was not of this world for long, it was her death that set off events that eventually led Hughie to The Boys and Annie. Hughie’s sudden relationship with Annie brings forth a guilt that hangs over him the rest of the season, especially when she’s a Supedealing with the guilt of fraternizing and moving on so fast hangs over him as well.
4/5 buckets: You only get one first impression and The Boys nailed theirs. It was an effective, traumatizing way to kick off the series.
Translucent - Season 1, Episode 2
Early on in The Boys, we learn that Supes are almost impossible to kill if you’re a human. Translucent, for instance, has skin that can turn into carbon metamaterial. It can bend light, which makes him invisible, but more importantly, it makes him totally impenetrable… but only from the outside. Electricity, however, can knock Translucent out, giving Frenchie (Tomer Capone) and Butcher (Karl Urban) time to stuff him into an electrified cage so they can figure out how to actually kill him. Solution: stick a bomb up his butt.
Frenchie and Butcher have to distract Homelander (Antony Starr), so Hughie is on bomb duty. Hughie wants to keep his hands clean and do things by the book, but as he’s constantly reminded by Butcher or his dad or Translucent, he just doesn’t have the type of power to leverage a situation. Translucent convinces Hughie to let him leave and thanks him with an “atta boy” shoulder pat, which triggers Hughie to defiantly (if cowardly for doing it with Translucent’s back turned) set off the bomb. Unlike Robin’s slow-mo death, Translucent’s was a jet spray splatter, swift and quick as Hughie’s changed mind, exploding in a short hallway.
5/5 buckets - Blown up to bits and goopified in a way that requires shoveling and mopping, it’s a big turning point for Hughie and The Boys’ fight with the Supes.
Lucy the Whale - Season 2, Episode 3
Showing that no one (human or animal) is safe from being a casualty in the middle of a Supe showdown, Lucy the Whale in Season 1 was a faultless victim. To redeem himself in the eyes of the public and of Vought, The Deep (Chace Crawford) commands his underwater friends to sink The Boys’ yacht as they sail to bring Kimiko’s brother — who is considered to be a Supe-Terrorist — to their ally Grace Mallory (Laila Robins).
The Boys escape in a speedboat and head towards a storm drain, when The Deep rises from the water on Lucy the Whale and blocks the entrance. He poses heroically atop her, waiting for the “bad guys” to stop, but Butcher instead goes full-throttle right into Lucy, shoving her and The Deep out of the water and permanently beaching her. While The Deep is knocked unconscious, The Boys emerge from Lucy’s gored side gasping for air and coated in blood, organs, and seaweed as if she birthed them. However, from the quiet inside surrounded by dripping arteries, faintly breathing lungs, and a slowly pulsing heart, Hughie sits catatonically and contemplates surrender. One must’ve had their life go to total shit if they're able to sit inside a half-alive whale and think about their lives.
3/5 buckets - The Boys went hulls to the (whale’s intestinal) walls and decided to sit in it for a bit (their feelings and the insides of a whale) before catching their second wind. It’s an interesting setting for soul searching, but an obstacle nonetheless and nothing special to dwell on. (But maybe to dwell in?)
Congressional Hearing Attendees, Season 2, Episode 7
Season 2 focuses more on The Boys exposing Vought’s shady past and true origins of Supes. We are introduced to Congresswoman Victoria Neuman (Claudia Doumit), an anti-Supe activist, who’s revealed in Season 3 to be Vought CEO Stan Edgar’s (Giancarlo Esposito) adopted daughter. Neuman sits on the committee investigating Vought and its production and distribution of Compound V. Fast forwarding through a lot of the throughline struggle between Vought and the government, Neuman is close to getting a key witness to testify in front of Congress. However, when Neuman and Grace Mallory finally get Vought scientist Jonah Vogelbaum (John Doman) to testify, Vogelbaum’s head explodes in a packed room, sending everyone into a frenzy. This is one of the few scenes that goes big in its goopiness and we are all the better for it. The shock and chaos of this public attack make good use of the goop too, with people slipping on it, getting covered in it, and shielding themselves from it.
5/5 buckets - This goop fest was everything The Boys is; shocking and chaotic, and with major repercussions and set up for the next season. The slippery, screaming room of freaked-out people and random heads exploding is terrifying and literally blows up/out the case against Vought and Supes.
Alastair Adana - Season 2, Episode 8
The Scientology-esque Church of the Collective was Vought’s main front for shipping Compound V to hospitals to inject into babies and to perpetuate the idea that some people are born with superpowers. The Collective also had files on Stormfront (Aya Cash)that revealed her true nature as a Nazi. The Collective’s Chairman, Alastair Adana (Goran Visnjic), meets a goopy end when Victoria Neuman explodes his head while he sits back with his feet kicked up, gloating about their success in his office. Being one of the few people who know what Neuman is capable of politically, Adana tries to offer additional Supe information that could take down Vought in exchange for a tax exemption status for the Collective.
Timed with cracking open his Fresca, Adana’s blood sprays the bay windows behind him. From his neck, blood is spurting from severed arteries. The freshly opened Fresca is spilled on the floor, mixing with the blood dripping from his wrists. Just outside those freshly red windows, we see Neuman staring at Adana’s office, revealing that not only is she a Supe, but was the one responsible for the head-exploding massacre at the Congressional hearing.
3/5 buckets - It’s a quick burst with a wicked reveal and plays like a part two to the Red Congressional Hearing in the episode before, and “neatly” rids the show of a character who no longer can serve a threat to Vought.
Termite's Partner - Season 3, Episode 1
Sometimes it feels like The Boys is a bit excessive with its deaths, but as Gen V’s safe sex PSA warns, sex for Supes could lead to injury… or death if they’re not careful. The death of Termite’s (Brett Geddes) partner, Peter, by his own self is a sad, yet very goopy example.
Termite is a Supe who can shrink down, but due to a tickle in his nose after doing some coke, the scene plays out like how many people wished Ant-Man would’ve done to Thanos: explode him from the inside. While being tiny and walking around inside Peter’s (Jarrett Siddall) urethra (which doesn’t seem pleasurable at all), Termite suddenly sneezes and enlarges, splitting Peter from within. Like a bottle of champagne, Peter’s stunned torso is popped off onto the bed and Termite replaces where he stood, covered in his lover’s blood. It gets even goopier as the camera takes on Termite’s perspective and pans down to show the dripping entrails. The splatter range covers the entire room and makes for a gross haystack from which The Boys have to chase around and look for Termite when they burst in and see what he’s done.
3/5 buckets - This scene is ultimately inconsequential to the plot, but god is it messy. It meets the standard of the list as the big shocking, messy death at the beginning of each season, but is still a testament to the show’s dedication to a goopy set piece.
Black Noir - Season 3, Episode 8
A tale as old as time: when you learn more about a character, their time is often almost up. It was natural to include much more Black Noir (Nathan Mitchell) in Season 3 as he was a common player in this secret history between Vought, Soldier Boy (Jensen Ackles), and Homelander. The scene builds the tension up to the death, so, while it wasn’t a surprise, it was still gut-wrenching to see the scene play out. Having worked alongside both father and son and knowing what dangerous, selfish men they can be, protecting himself and that secret is important, but Black Noir knows the consequences of betraying either.
Homelander puts the pieces together and rams his fist through Black Noir. Hurt and sobbing, Homelander pulls Noir closer to him and turns his fist with a decisiveness like the metaphorical knife he felt stabbed and twisted into his own back by this betrayal from one of his longest and most loyal teammates. As Homelander yanks out a piece of intestine and releases Noir from his grasp, Noir wobbles before dropping to his knees and falling onto his back so his intestines are splayed about with blood seeping everywhere. His body is squirming and fighting to stay alive until he sees his imaginary animated friends come and tearfully tell him that they’re proud of him. Why am I crying now?
2/5 buckets - The writing was on the wall for Black Noir, and it’s a fairly contained mess, but it’s sad nonetheless. As a personal betrayal to Homelander, it’s a death that only really matters to him. However, how long will it be before someone doesn’t buy the “he’s out on a mission” excuse?
Either way, The Boys knows how to make a splash spectacle each season and Gen V is already carrying on this legacy. Do you agree with our ratings? Did we miss a big goopy death from the show? Let us know in the comments.
